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The Nation; A Political Rarity: Seven Weeks of Maybe

AMERICANS this year are getting a chance to see something rare: a presidential dead heat.

The last time polls showed a White House match-up that was this close at this point was when Ronald Reagan took on President Jimmy Carter in 1980. Before that, you have to reach back another 20 years, to the contest between Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy.

Usually, the nominee who is ahead in the polls just after Labor Day wins. This time, neither candidate is ahead. That is not to suggest that the race of 2000 will be a replay of those of 1960 or 1980. If anything, there are more similarities to 1988, when an incumbent governor took on an incumbent vice president.

Nevertheless, as Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore sweat out the daily tracking polls, there may be some lessons for them in examining how Mr. Reagan and Mr. Kennedy managed to charge ahead in the final days -- or final hours, in Mr. Kennedy's case -- before the election.

Around this time 20 years ago, Mr. Reagan did many of the same things Mr. Bush has done recently: He declared himself the underdog; asserted that his rival, as the incumbent, had the advantage; pronounced the current administration's record a failure, and insisted that he was not deterred by the publicity about whether he had the brains to be in the Oval Office.

But in terms of the state of the nation, this year's race resembles 1960 much more than 1980. Twenty years ago, there was runaway inflation, the Iran hostage crisis was unresolved and there were interminable lines at the gas pumps. But in 1960, like today, voters seemed relatively content. Then, as now, the race was between a vice president from a fairly popular administration -- at least as far as issues were concerned -- and a more charismatic (and more youthful) opponent.

Mr. Kennedy sought to inspire the electorate with a vision of the nation's future. At a speech given in Mineola, N.Y., nearly 40 years ago, he said, ''This is a contest between the contented and those who wish to move ahead, between those who are satisfied and those who want to do better.'' Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore have also made the case that while the economy might be thriving, that is not enough, and were either of them to repeat verbatim Mr. Kennedy's words, no one would find them surprising or out of place today.

This year, just as in 1960 and 1980, it appears that the televised presidential debates will prove critical to the campaign. Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Reagan faced questions about their capacity and preparedness to lead, as Mr. Bush does now. Such questions were largely put to rest by the debates.

THE 1960 debates allowed Mr. Kennedy to demonstrate that he had mastered the issues against his more seasoned competitor, Mr. Nixon. More important, Mr. Nixon, who had been recuperating from an infection, looked pallid, even menacing, in the first and most heavily watched encounter. By contrast, Mr. Kennedy looked vital, relaxed and confident.

The 1980 debates proved crucial for Mr. Reagan, who was able, with a smile and a shake of the head, to demonstrate that he could handle the presidency. ''There you go again,'' he said to Mr. Carter after the president lambasted him as a threat to world stability.

Even the vexed relations between the incumbent president and his vice president recalls the contests of 1960 and 1980. Many of Mr. Kennedy's associates said that Mr. Nixon failed to take advantage of his partnership with a popular president, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Mr. Eisenhower, however, did not help matters when he said he would need a week to think of a major decision in which Mr. Nixon participated as vice president.

President Clinton has been much more helpful to his vice president, especially by giving him a substantial role in his administration. But, given Mr. Clinton's own troubles, the relationship is complicated and Mr. Gore seems not to have resolved how and how much he can make use of the president to support his candidacy.

Beyond these narrow analogies lies a broad lesson that Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush should learn from the past -- especially in a fight as closely contested as this one. And that is not to grow too confident.

In mid-October of 1980, polls suggested that Mr. Reagan's support was leveling off and that Mr. Carter was on the rise. That led Robert Strauss, Mr. Carter's campaign manager, to say to a reporter at the time, ''I sleep like a baby these nights.''

Not too long after that comment, Mr. Reagan began to gain ground. He won with only 50.8 percent of the vote. The Kennedy victory was even more of a squeaker: 50.1 percent.

Joseph Napolitan, who worked on the Kennedy campaign, said he often toiled blissfully unaware of how tight the race really was. ''We didn't have tracking polls the way we have now,'' he said. ''We probably would have been more frightened if we had.''

Imagine how Mr. Napolitan would have felt had he known that the entire contest could have turned on Mr. Kennedy's victory in Illinois, which some people say was assured only through vote stealing engineered by Mayor Richard J. Daley and his Chicago political machine.

''It was decided election day, or if you believe the Daley story, the morning after,'' said Fred Dutton, who was a strategist for the Kennedy campaign.

The lessons? It is hard to pinpoint a single stroke that can turn an election. And don't expect to win, because often victory is beyond the control of even the most adept candidate.

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A version of this article appears in print on September 17, 2000, on Page 4004005 of the National edition with the headline: The Nation; A Political Rarity: Seven Weeks of Maybe. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe